How are we all feeling about the randy old goat presently holding the future of Euro-la-la-land in his sweaty busy-hands then?

This makes an interesting read

Sweet baby jesus and the orphans, we’re all doomed

Apparently, there can’t be a crisis in the Euro because all the restaurants round his way are fully booked. Proof positive that everything is going great!

I’m scared! 😯

How must it feel when WORLD stock markets rally on rumours that you will be resigning soon? Ace!

Anyone who paints hair onto their head is supsect. I mean =- does this look natural?

Bunga Bunga

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTmXGiuxJso[/video]

Great photo of the old perv at the G20 😆

Shame he can do a George W and piss off with a few $$m leaving someone else and the public to take all the shit.

He becomes more and more like a Harry Enfield character, doesn’t he?

The Economist have been one of his most excoriating critics.

http://www.economist.com/node/18805327

The man who screwed an entire country

We have, however, long protested about his second failing: his financial shenanigans. Over the years, he has been tried more than a dozen times for fraud, false accounting or bribery. His defenders claim that he has never been convicted, but this is untrue. Several cases have seen convictions, only for them to be set aside because the convoluted proceedings led to trials being timed out by a statute of limitations—at least twice because Mr Berlusconi himself changed the law. That was why this newspaper argued in April 2001 that he was unfit to lead Italy.

more in depth here
http://www.economist.com/node/587107
and here
http://www.economist.com/node/1957150

I hora was a world leader he would be this one

I’m mystified as to why the Italian people jolly well have not afforded him the same treatment as their last Duce.

I mean, surely there must be loads of lampposts in Italy? 😕

Is it racialist that I call him “Silvery Macaroni”?

I’m mystified as to why the Italian people jolly well have not afforded him the same treatment as their last Duce.

I mean, surely there must be loads of lampposts in Italy?

Elf, they seem to love him. I work with a couple of Milanese, and they really, truly, don’t understand what the rest of Europes problem is with him. He is the ‘papa’ apparently 😕

Elfinsafety – Member
I’m mystified as to why the Italian people jolly well have not afforded him the same treatment as their last Duce.

I mean, surely there must be loads of lampposts in Italy?

Posted 1 minute ago # Report-Post

National shortage of piano wire, some reckon silvio has it all so they can’t string him up.

He’s now the longest serving Italian PM since the war. Truly incredible!

I don’t know what Bunga Bunga parties are, and I’m scared to Google it. I suspect some things you’re just best off not knowing

Elf, they seem to love him. I work with a couple of Milanese, and they really, truly, don’t understand what the rest of Europes problem is with him. He is the ‘papa’ apparently

My wife [and her family] are from Naples and they won’t have a bad word said against him
His party took a pounding at the mayoral elections there recently and local elections in Milan [big Berlusconi stronghold]gave a similar result so the end is near I reckon but I wouldn’t mention that to my father in law 🙂

On holiday in Italy this year several people said they hated him as he made Italy a laughing stock

Easy to brainwash people when you control most of the media I guess.
Look at North Korea.

To see how he lives and what he gets away with, you have to admire the old goat in a way. I have a different opinion of folk who thought him the best person to run their country though, although the long list of previous incumbents hardly inspires. Maybe he really is the best they had available. Now that would be a worry. Is the Italian public ever likely to elect a John Major/Gordon Brown dullard to the top job?

you have to admire the old goat in a way

Really?? 😯 Why?

I work with a couple of Milanese, and they really, truly, don’t understand what the rest of Europes problem is with him. He is the ‘papa’ apparently

shrewd move by s.b to buy and succesfully run ac milan, very much a national club in a nation obsessed with calcio.

expect to see s.b swinging from a lampost if milan are ever in serie b but all other transgressions will probably be forgiven.

I’m mystified as to why the Italian people jolly well have not afforded him the same treatment as their last Duce.

I mean, surely there must be loads of lampposts in Italy?

From an educated and smart Italian I know, the comment was “the alternative is worse, don’t ask – we’re embarrassed too”.

shrewd move by s.b to buy and succesfully run ac milan, very much a national club in a nation obsessed with calcio.

I could understand that, but they don’t even follow football. One even rides mountain bikes for gawds sake 🙂

Italy looks like an absolute joke in his hands. There must be plenty of intelligent people there who just rub their face in their hands.

I remember the joke a univ prof told me in..99?
you can be honest and clever but then you’ll not vote berlusconi
you can be clever and vote berlusconi but then you’re not honest.
you can be honest and vote berlusconi,but then you’re not clever.

He rules the media,and has done for the past 20years,the italy that supports him,and there are a lot them,have been created by his ‘mind numbing spirit crushing game shows’.and fox type news.

The left wing in italy has been unable to find it’s bearings for the past 20ys.

Plenty of opposition.Fini,split up with him,never liked his politics,but he talks sense(now).
I remember reading russian diary,by anna poliotskaya(sp) and she was writing about the constant attack on the juridical system,the media,by putin.
pretty much applies to italy as well.

smile without a soul,as cossutta said a long time ago.

The Naplese that I worked with a few years ago thought it was better that he was where he could be ‘seen’, rather than in the shadows…

Have they gone bust yet? I bet he still won’t resign, even then. Surely Italy can’t make it to the end of the week without hitting the magi 7% interest fee, triggering a default, IMF bail out and subsequent DOOOOOOOOOOOOM for all of us, particularly Italy

Silvio still doesn’t seem even mildly perturbed. Madness!

Anyone know what the UK rate is?
All the newspaper comparative charts seem to leave it off, which seems a bit odd.

I think ours isn’t that far off Germany’s. Very low in comparison to Italy for example. Apparently our debt is structured completely differently to Italy’s. Theirs is short term and has to constantly re-financed. Our government bonds are long term and therefore more stable

*tries to sound not-that-thick by repeating what he heard on the Today programme this morning* 🙂

Corruption just seems to be far more culturally acceptable in southern Europe. As does having a PM who behaves like Benny Hill.

At least it gives us something to feel superior to the Italians about – with their good looks, great food, big mountains, hot weather and enormous historical monuments.

It really is a bit like if Richard Desmond was our PM.

Ian Munro……. from the guardian live blog

11.20am: Time for a quick romp around the bond markets? Here’s a round-up of the current yields* on ten-year sovereign debt (cribbed from our Reuters terminal), showing the ‘league table’ of yields, and showing how they have moved today:

Germany: 1.818% +0.028
US: 2.033% +0.013
UK: 2.286% +0.015
France: 3.108 +0.008
Belgium: 4.248% -0.095
Spain: 5.628% -0.018
Italy: 6.624% -0.063
Portugal: 13.274% -0.289
Greece: 31.174% + 0.142

Cheers!
31% ouch!

they must use my credit card company…

Italy…..where senators take home EUR12k per month after taxes and go to the cinema and theatre for free anytime they want. Italians get fed an endless diet of cheap gameshows and Berlusconi owned news that lauds him to the rafters.

Thank god for the BBC

there are good italian tv programmes.There are some excellent italian newspapers.

most of the good tv hosts are now on la7,after rai was purged by B.

I have noticed,in all the countries I?ve lived in,britain included,the tendency to focus on foreign corruption rather than homebrewed.
A bit like the endless media campaign against greece at the moment.
It gives everybody a scapegoat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15646536

emmanuel agreed re the press – eg la Repubblica and L’espresso…

But what is also quite Italian does seem to be the inertia about actually doing something about it… Bella Figura being more important than Mani Pullite…

And Italian TV really really really does suck.

I think I know what’s gonna happen now, I hope it doesn’t.

spanish tv is worse!not had a tv for about 12years though.started when I was in italy.was back in london about 2ys ago and tbh made my mind up that most tv is crap,besides,most ofthe stuff we’re all seeing is american.
having said that,I agree about the tv.but B created it,mediaset started showing crap about 25-30ys ago,naturally the worse the programming the higher the ratings.Rai took up the crapness/audience challenge.
he finished the job off when he became pm.
he’s also silenced wikipedia,you can’t access it from italy anymore.

He’s got an enormous media machine in place.the left has disintegrated,the catholic church plays along.so there aren’t that many places an opposition can be heard,esp internationally.

ps,about doing something about it.
the judicial system has been under constant attack.laws are changed to suit B.witnesses bribed.funds cut.judges attacked in (general and personal)smear campaigns.This has been going on for years,
dell’utri was found guilty recently.but no evidence.
the mills case expires in jan,thanks to his new law,but this crisis gives him a legal excuse to avoid the summons.
so,he has resisted(pretty well,must give the man credit where it’s due) all the efforts made,and they have been plenty.
look up the lodo mondadori for example.

there is also the fact that there is a chunk of italy that prefers a certain chaos.makes hiding their little secrets easier.